Cherniy Aegis
by Sister Havoc
Summary: In the wake of the double event, two miraculous survivors are pulled from the wreckage. [Post-Pacific Rim]
1. Breathe

The incessant groan of grinding metal disturbed the rousing pilot. Adrift, she thought, the soothing sea lapping at her frail body. Slowly, painfully, she opened her eyes, the saltwater unforgiving in its assault. The stars surged brightly above her, the moon bare and full. A beacon.

And then she remembered.

The frailty of mortals, the shell of their bond, the body of their behemoth, breached. Attached to her drowning husband, the two receded into their pons; a life once cherished come to the inevitable. The ghostly coil of his mind in her own, the lovers drowned in the memory of days past, as the wrath of a God bore down on them. Her breathing seized.

Aleksis.

Suddenly, aware of mangled flesh and battered bone, Sasha jerked, her arms snagging on an unseen restraint. Wires, tangled in the heart of her protector, anchored her to life. Harbored in the drift, she could not recall reality, only her assailant. Otachi, they called her.

The kaiju's acid had been both demise and savior. As the corrosive plasma hollowed out the cooling tower, Leatherback's assault weakened the structure. When the beast moved to deliver the kill, the explosion freed the pilots, delivering them to air pockets within Cherno Alpha's dome. And now, as a final act of aegis, she secured her remaining pilot. The Jaeger was as much alive as the world it defended.

An undamaged rim of Cherno's crown crested the water. Defying her searing pain, Sasha wretched as she twisted her body, seizing the wires and pulling herself in-land. With the strength bare in her right arm, she dragged herself atop the machine with her left, adrenaline surging in her core. She scanned the horizon. There was no sign of kaiju or comrade alike. Certainly, rescue was not imminent. The faint glow of dawn told her hours passed, and the temptation of solid ground had her fantasizing an early morning swim. She was willful, but she was no fool. If the current did not sweep away and drown her broken body, a hungry shadow would certainly trail her. She inhaled to call for her husband, and the grim denial came to her in a fit of racking, blood ridden coughs. The iron tang in her mouth promised a ruptured lung, torn by the fractures in her now aching chest.

She breathed timidly, lowering her head in solemn acceptance. The heart of a soldier sheltered much pain, but only in peace did it haunt their soul; the distant wail of sirens echoed her grief. She closed her eyes. If the strength of the sea had claimed her husband, it too, would claim her.


	2. Retaliation

Less than an hour since the seal of the Breach, the PPDC scrambled to gather reconnaissance. With the world's saviors safely tucked away inside Hong Kong's Shatterdome, teams were scattered to formally asses the damages in the light of day. Against the odds, recovered alongside Striker in the aftermath of Otachi's demise, Aleksis Kaidanovsky laid dormant on an examination table. Void of emotion, he stared at the ceiling, dissociated from the doctors rushing around him. They swore in various tones of Cantonese, panicked to see to the man's wounds. Much to their benefit, he obliged, making no fuss when they shoved or prodded. Not out of respect or submission, but of indifference.

His mind was at sea, fighting the pull of the waves as the chopper pilots hauled his oversized body from the open ocean. The unified shock of the crew was disheartening. With strength escaping him, Aleksis demanded his wife's retrieval, insisting she was trapped in the hull of their Jaeger. But they refused, endlessly. Cherno's exposed reactor was too dangerous to navigate, and his condition was critical. Shouting in disbelief, they reported their find to Loccent as their sister team secured Striker.

They left her.

Aleksis, at last, empathized with the Beckett brother. Death was inevitable in war, in life. But to be stripped of an entity, what heart was there in existing as a half. As the doctor's readied the man's IV, Hercules was granted permission to the room. He approached the wounded pilot cautiously, both in stature and speech. The newly acclaimed Marshal personally assembled a crew for the recovery of the Wei Tang brothers and Mrs. Kaidanovsky. With a heavy heart, judgment clouded, his regret for the mission was instantaneous. These Rangers deserved to be memorialized everywhere as heroes, not graves. Bleak was his ambition for more survivors.

"The Breach was sealed at 'o' eight hundred hours. Striker ran point, with Gipsy at the 6. Marshal Pentecost and-" There was a slight hitch in his voice. "Chuck Hansen were killed in action. No sign of other survivors, yet." He struggled to keep purely statistic; the Lieutenant deserved to know the scope of his sacrifice. Hercules moved as the doctors shuffled around him.

"I've sent my men to scour the bay, and a squad to search the wreckage with proper shielding," He upheld the most respective tone. "We'll find her." Aleksis did not acknowledge his former equal. He did not budge. The Marshal hesitated, but determined to dull the edge. Offering some news the pilot might like to hear, Herc took a seat, approaching as a friend.

"You can thank Gipsy for avenging your Jaeger, mate. Lit up the big ugly bastard - cut the other one in two. Turns out it could fly. Impressive sight that, a Jaeger falling fifty-thousand feet." He ended his sentiment with a smirk, negating the calamity of the event. The Russian was not nearly as amused. "Seen our first category 5, son of a bitch that one," Herc paused, a weight in his chest. "Me own kid went toe-to-toe with the damn thing. You believe it?" Whether the intention was rhetorical or not, Aleksis couldn't be damned to respond. He lay stoic, lost with thoughts for his wife.

He couldn't feel her.

The familiarity of her presence, physical and mental, had imprinted him. Like groping into the darkness, he reached for something. Everything. Any sign that she was still with him. But there was only silence.

"Had I listened to my son, Cherno might be safe. Typhoon too," He paused, eyeing a doctor as he fed an anesthetic into the pilot's arm. "But, I was determined not to disobey orders. And now those brothers' lives, my son's life-"

As the father spoke of his son, Aleksis faced his bridge, alone. There was no longer her temper to steady, the potency of her spirit intoxicating him to press on. The ghostly tendrils of their splintered connection bore into him, dragging him to a depth humanity could not reach. She was stripped from him as flesh and blood, and he was a wound lay bare. The internal pit of his grief mocked the breach itself. He was a man in mourning, unwilling for human contact.

"I do not have room for your grief, Marshal."

Uniformity shattered with his boom of a voice, and the room froze. Despite the toxin slick in his veins, the seemingly lifeless patient suddenly roused to the offense, shielding his heart. Hercules stopped, refined in his withdrawal. He was callous in his own pain, too far such to honor the boundaries, and remember the loss around him. But the line was easy to redefine for a Kaidanovsky.

The Marshal stood, bowing his head in apologetic dismissal before he turned to leave. Aleksis stared on, eyes narrowing as darkened jaws closed in around him. He could not justify life, and as he had defied his fate, he had received an end most cowardice. To leave them - her, their Jaeger - with nothing, while he was gifted the world, an undeserving victor. As the narcotic worked to seize his senses, he yearned for one more casualty.


	3. Bound

[**Edit**: **Thank you to tumblr user Explodinghye for her wonderful edits! I really think they helped bring out emotions that were lacking.**]

Repetition, a beep, tethering him to reality. Flashes of surgeons and assistants suddenly raged in his memory, and proved to be more than a near-death hallucination. It was distant, a faint guidance in the darkness, and the only solid information he had on which to stand. He was alive.

Warily, as if to prove himself wrong, he eased open his eyes, only to be assaulted with the intensity of overhead lights. The blinded man wretched, struggling to shield himself from the brightness. In his sudden state of awareness, he realized his arms felt weighted and limp, and only one of his eyes was responding to reflex. An unintentional groan escaped the delirious patient, and the nurse beside him flinched as she removed the last of his EKG hookup. The faint pressure against his side, now relieved, made him feel off balance, and it wasn't until raven hair came into view that he realized it was a doctor. She'd been among the first females he'd seen since his admission. She gawked at him, shocked to see him awake so soon.

"You awake too soon, no good. Told them needed more." She spoke with an accent, but in his haze, he could not tell the difference between fluency and garbage. As he moved to motion in request, his elbow surged, catching him off guard. He turned, surprised to see the neon green fabric of a cast contrast against his pale flesh. He made a sound; whether humor or disapproval, he wasn't sure. But despite his crowning attire, he'd certainly felt worse in his days. The incessant burn of Kaiju Blue had been negated, and the tremors in his belly were no more. In fact, he felt quite warm, and comfortable. Pleasant even. But he was no stranger to the works of medical magic, and simply wrote it off as morphine. Perhaps something stronger.

As his body flushed with euphoria, the doctor worked to free him from the numerous medical contraptions that held him, which was far from standard practice.

"I am Dao-Ming, but can call me just Ming. I help you through recovery. We try move before you awake, much easier. But-" She paused, checking the vital signals on a nearby monitor. "-should be okay."

He felt obligated to ask why he was being relocated, but knew it was innocent to think he'd been the only body affected by war. Suddenly, he recalled the brief exchange with Hercules some time ago, and felt a tug of guilt. Clearly, the Marshal had no malicious intent, and any scope of such would only defy his character. How easy it'd become to believe every word mentioned and gesture thrown was an attack. In the confines of their quarters, the Kaidanovsky's had grown amorous and guarded, thwarting any hope that they might offer such emotions to the rest of the world. Aleksis sighed.

Dao-Ming, otherwise, was busying herself with the rehearsed duties of a medical practitioner. She was lost in her thoughts, and tripping over words, as she tried to explain the miracle that unfolded inside Cherno Alpha. She explained that he'd relatively eluded shockwave damage, and had escaped unharmed given the extent of the catastrophe.

"You have elbow fracture, so we put you in cast for week. Let you heal closed, then we work on movement." She was keen to use her hands, helping to illustrate her words. She'd dealt with enough patients to know most did not remember the first explanation. She made a mental note to repeat her speech in several hours, as she covered her right eye.

"Patch on your eye, do not remove. We check on it tomorrow, but doctor say you still see." He'd only now become aware that something was, indeed, covering his eye - presumably gauze - which credited his light sensitivity. He wished she did not mention the patch. The irrational need to pick and tear was now itching at his conscious, and his curiosity to see what else the Kaiju had taken from him was insatiable.

She went on to explain that the nurses had recovered some clothing from his quarters, with the Marshal's permission, and they had fastened them at the foot of his bed. It was then he realized they'd managed to strip him of his drivesuit, and fitted him with a rather tight gown. The heat rose in his cheeks, the thought both embarrassing and amusing. They'd felt more comfortable handling the man unconscious than even conversing him while awake, like tranquilizing a bear.

She pulled him from the intricate pulley system holding his elbow, as she encouraged him to sit up. He almost laughed. None of the male doctors had dared approach him in such a manner. There was an air of intimacy to it. She tried to speak his formal title as she addressed the situation to him, but retreated once she realized the attempt was more embarrassing than the pronunciation itself.

"We move you to different room now. Your sister- no, uh..." She struggled to find the right word. "Wife. She come in while you sleeping."

Time froze outside of him. Suddenly, the nurses' scrambling movements and speech were hours to his seconds. His vision began to blur with the sting of silent, hot tears and his heart was washed in a sweet rush of relief.

She was alive. She was the scraping, gnawing, groping spot in the back of his mind left over from their drift's abrupt end, clawing at his consciousness like the wolf she was. She was alive; his wife, his better half, was alive! The inability to see her and fling himself upon her like some lovesick madman was the only grievance he now carried, cursing himself for allowing the imagination of her somewhere dead in the sea or on a shore...

As the nurses left, Aleksis' marred, gnarled hand covered his reddening face and an audible sniff was heard, with a soft swear to his reclaimed lover beneath quivering breaths.

"Ya zdes..."


	4. Update

[ Not a true update, but wanted to let my followers know this story is not dead! With the holidays finally over, I can get back to writing. Rejoice, and thanks for your continued support of everyone's favorite Russians!]


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